Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia had been lost in her thoughts for a second and Pareth had killed another of the shades in the meantime.

‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 199]’

Taking another empty jar out of her ring, she prepared another Silverwater projectile, handing it to a Vampire. I’m going to be out of jars soon at this rate…

A second shade was revealed by the projectile, looking very much like the first, and another round of merciless whipping ensued. While Pareth disposed of the last monster a bit further.

‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 167]’

‘You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 211]’

No bonus this time.

While Pareth was waiting for his mana to regenerate, Sofia took a look at the new, shinier powder from her whip kills.

[Solar Shade Dust]: The remains of a destroyed True Shade killed by Solar light. Can be used to fuel rituals or dye clothing and armor. Scatters all light. This powder is the whitest object in existence!

Also, no brewing potions with this one? Interesting that the type of dust changes depending on how these die. Are there other types of light to kill them with that will give different results? What about the light from the Silverwater? It does hurt them so… Anyway, I’m taking all of this too.

Waiting for Pareth’s mana to be full, Sofia prepared more Silverwater jars with all that she had, almost emptying the barrel. Since she had extra time she also did a round trip to refill the barrel.

That’s less than I thought, and I need to keep a few for emergencies. Let’s see where this gets me.

The cavern split into three branches a bit further. Sofia went with the left one first. Fighting more Shades on the way. It wasn’t her lucky day, this was a dead end, the only thing waiting for her in the last portion of it was more and more Shades. She kind of stopped keeping track of the kills and level-ups, deciding to completely hide the distracting menus until they were done with the Shade party.

Next, she explored the tunnel on the right, thinking that the correct way couldn’t possibly be straight forward. She had good hope as she and Pareth got better at dealing with the Shades, even though a slip-up cost her a rune and one of the Vampires at one point. The passive effect of her venerable physique had saved her from death with a few health points but the Shade hadn't given her any time to recover and a rune was gone. Soon after, the killer Shade was gone too, reduced to dust by Pareth's vengeful fury.

Reaching another dead end after fighting for a long time, and as her mana was close to zero, Sofia despaired to have done all that for so little results. But she did at least find the remains of the cut-up piece of the backpack from earlier. It turned out the unlucky adventurer hadn’t been Xeros, and they hadn’t survived. In fact, the skeleton was cut up in many pieces beyond recognition, Sofia might have not even known it was a skeleton if not for her familiarity with bones.

There was nothing worth taking.

She was almost back at the Silverwater pond, ready to erase the marks and wait for her mana, when her vision suddenly changed. It was subtle, but she could see now, barely, only blurry outlines, but she could see where before her vision had been a perfect black void.

[Venerable physique of the primeval void] ♢ :

Second step : Become able to see in the dark (50%/100%)

Already halfway through? Nice, at this rate I’ll be able to leave this place soon…

Or not.

I’m going to explore and loot this damn buried cathedral. I’ll gnaw it to the bone. Because I can.

There HAS to be something good in there. It’s the whole point of a dungeon!

But that means there’s a boss too. If that’s another shade… Maybe I should keep more jars. Even if I can see a bit now. Just in case of emergency.

Also, come to think of it, this place too would make a great secret underground necromancer base. Kind of. I guess the Empire knows about it so maybe not. I don’t even need to do it in secret as it turned out. Nonetheless, she was still attracted by the idea.

Sofia was more confident now, but she still wanted to resummon the vampires. The skeleton book had too little fog left. At best it could get her the bowman soldier and the birds. Well, birds are better than nothing. Still, she wanted to be able to keep going for longer this time, so she only put up two immortality runes to save some mana reserves. No matter how tempting it was to go without them, she knew very well now what would happen if a Shade actually managed to reach her.

There were surprisingly fewer Shades in the middle passage, but they were higher level. Sofia’s levels were shooting up from fighting the monsters. The more danger she was in, the more experience she would get. And she was in plenty of danger because, without the Vampires, she had to throw the jars herself, which required her to come closer to the action. By the time they reached the next part of the cave complex, she had reached level 190. Unsurprisingly, nothing came of it. Only the usual five health, five stamina, and five-hundred mana, no skill keywords.

Something about preparing the body for the level-up and mana synchronization…

Maybe I’ll get a class or a race evolution this time? What can a human evolve into? Actually, who is even using the evolution feature? Do lizardmen turn into Dragons?

The disappointing level-up aside, Sofia was squinting, trying to understand what she was now looking at. It looked like a regular cave bursting with stalagmites from afar, but upon closer inspection, the hundreds of things blocking the way were statues. Monsters, humans, dwarves, even the long extinct avians, all kinds of rough stone statues, Sofia could only see their backs. She didn’t think much of it besides how weird it was that they would be here. But this was supposedly a buried cathedral, and cathedrals were exactly where Sofia would expect to find loads of sculptures of all kinds.

A thin mana fog permeated the air, this was something new, usually ambient mana was more like background noise to Sofia’s senses but this was thicker and more organized. She felt that something was wrong. This cannot be natural. Is it safe to walk in there? She took a step back.

Her first foot moved back. The second didn’t. What?!

She looked down in horror, discovering that her right foot was now as much a statue as the rest of them.

Pareth reacted, using one of his skills that had been completely useless until now.

[Purification] : Cleanse a spherical area around the user’s hand. Eliminates diseases, filth, and curses in the air, in water and on solid surfaces. Can be used through direct contact with a target to cleanse internal poisons, weak curses and mild disease.

Sofia felt the air clear up. It’s a curse! Are all these statues… The weird mana fog was gone in a large sphere around her. But it was slowly closing back in. Pareth grabbed her petrified foot and used [Purification] again. It failed to reverse the process, the stone was rapidly spreading along Sofia’s leg.

“Cut it off,” she ordered, giving Pareth the Mithril dagger.

He had to cut the leg at the thigh to be certain to cut off the curse’s progress. Sofia clenched her teeth as the blade ran through her flesh and bone, it bled like a fountain. Pareth helped her retreat.

Fuck, I’m lucky that my foot was further in the tunnel and got affected first! What if that started with my face?!

Lucky was relative, as she was now missing a leg and rapidly bleeding out, with no way to heal herself because of [False immortality]. Just finish me off, I still have two runes up.

Pareth refused.

Oh. Well. You know, that’s fair. Give back the dagger, then.

She wanted to finish the job, but once the dagger was in her hands, she couldn't do it. By the time she gathered her resolve, she was too weak to even injure herself.

Just… Bring me back to the pond… I’ll-... I'll sleep this death off…

Sofia had no idea how much time had passed but she woke up on the ground near the pond, with Pareth sitting cross-legged on the side. She wasn’t in a big pool of her own blood, which was better than she had expected, but she could smell it clearly. Looking around, said pool of blood wasn’t far, only that Pareth had taken her out after the rune healed her.

She dispelled the other rune and relaxed on the ground while her mana came back.

A curse that turns people to stone.

Pareth wasn’t affected.

And [Purification] seemed to work at cleaning up the air from it. But there must be something fueling it since it was building back up after that. Can’t be a simple unattended ritual circle, not if it’s been running like that for who knows how many hundreds of years. It would have long ran out of mana.

I can probably get through if Pareth purifies the way forward. But that’s dangerous. Alternatively, I’m pretty sure it is an airborne curse, so going through the ground with the graveyard skeletons might work but not if the zone of influence of the curse is larger than my skill’s range.

I’m mostly worried about what would happen if I’m fully turned to stone by this. Will the rune still save me? It does save me when I’m exploded out of existence, but what if the curse persists in my body after the healing?

I shouldn't take any risks with this… I’ll send the rat scout first. I can do that right now.

The book appeared above Sofia’s extended hands, already showcasing the rat’s page for her to tear off.

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